The 20 strikeouts were great. But they are not going to change the way the Red Sox deal with Roger Clemens on a new contract.
``That was a fantastic performance,'' says Sox CEO John Harrington, ``and we are all happy for Roger. We want him to be with us in the future and retire in a Red Sox uniform.
``But we know this is going to be a complicated negotiation. For our part, it is going to come down to guaranteed dollars and how many years.
``People think the problem is the number of years on the contract. We'd give him six years if they weren't guaranteed, so it's not the years, it's the amount of guaranteed money. We cannot give away the franchise, like some want us to do, simply to give Roger anything he wants.
``We're running a business here and we have to do what is in the best interests, long term, for the Red Sox. We are going to offer Roger a good contract, and we hope to include ways he can make more money, or extend the contract, depending on how he performs on the field.''
The Red Sox have been talking two more years for Clemens. He says he wants to pitch four more. Clemens was paid $21 million for the last four years, better than $5 million annually, and to date has posted a 40-38 record in that period. On that basis, he was paid a lot more than he was worth.
But he has demonstrated in the past few weeks that when he decides to turn it on, he can still throw as hard as anyone in the game. Where has that fastball been the last couple of years?
The Sox probably will offer Clemens a contract that could be extended a year at a time if he reaches certain predetermined goals. Maybe 200 innings or more. Or 20 wins.
Clemens and his agents will want to get as much guaranteed money as they can to protect him if he suddenly loses his ability or hurts his arm, cutting his career short. At the same time, the Sox do not want to be paying millions to someone who can't pitch anymore.
They also know there is a real danger that Clemens could opt to finish elsewhere. ``If Roger decides to sign with Houston or the Rangers for a change in lifestyle,'' says general manager Dan Duquette, ``then there isn't much we can do about it. But if it comes down to money, then we will be very competitive.''
What does this team have in common?
C John Flaherty, San Diego, .307
1B Jeff Bagwell, Houston, .317, 31 HRs, 117 RBIs
2B Jody Reed, San Diego, .241
3B Wade Boggs, Yankees, .315
LF Ellis Burks, Colorado, .341, 38, 124
CF Brady Anderson, Orioles, .294, 46, 109
RF Phil Plantier, Oakland, .212
P Frank Rodriguez, Minnesota, 13-13
All of them are products of the Red Sox farm system. Admittedly, Reed and Plantier are a reach just to fill out a lineup, and there is no shortstop to be found.
But imagine having Anderson, Burks, Bagwell, Mo Vaughn and John Valentin batting back to back in the Boston lineup. And Flaherty is a terrific defensive catcher, something the Sox haven't had since Tony Pena left town.
One well-placed Boston College fanatic tells me Dan Henning's comment this week about not being able to win if Michigan plays its game today has the alumni going nuts, thinking our man Dan has thrown in the towel before the game even starts. Incidentally, one Virginia Tech assistant said after last week's 45-7 rout that his team did not know there was any information on the Internet about the BC football team until the morning of the game and didn't have any time to use it. Judging by the way the game went, Virginia Tech could have told BC before every play what it was going to do and it wouldn't have made any difference. BC was completely overmatched.
If the Yankees handled things as well as Joe Mooney did at Fenway Park eight days ago, they wouldn't have had the beef with the American League and the umpires about postponing the opening game of this week's big Orioles series in Yankee Stadium.
Last Friday, the Sox were playing Chicago in a game with playoff implications and a steady drizzle was falling on Fenway. The same umpiring crew, led by Joe Brinkman, came to Mooney and wanted the straight scoop on the weather. The Sox have a weather satellite dish on the roof of Fenway and are in constant communication with the weather bureau. Mooney told Brinkman that it was not going to rain any harder, but that the game would probably be played in drizzle. Brinkman said the crew did not want to look bad by letting the game start, then having to call it off if heavy rains moved in.
The game was played and finished. When the Brinkman crew left Fenway, they tipped the Red Sox grounds crew $100 for a job well done on the field.
Brinkman went to New York and allowed Tuesday's showdown between David Cone and Mike Mussina to begin, only to stop it in the first inning, and eventually called it off two hours later when the heavy rain persisted. Brinkman told friends later he never would have started the game if he had been told heavy rain was on the way.
There's no question that Tiger Woods made verbal commitments to Nike and Titleist and had IMG acting as his agent weeks before he won his third straight US Amateur title. It was written in this column what would happen before the tourney was played, based on information that was well known in the agent community - that the deals had been cut.
Make sure you are in your seat in Foxboro Stadium tomorrow for the Patriots-Jaguars kickoff. As soon as the national anthem ends, there will be a flyover by four US Air Force jets celebrating the 50th anniversary of the group.Will McDonough is a Globe columnist.
This story ran on page g1 of the Boston Globe on 09/21/96.